A False Sense of Security
by Rachel500
Summary: John doesn't quite remember how he got on the Ferris Wheel, but he's beginning to remember a whole other life he'd once lived.


Stargate Atlantis is somebody else's, probably MGM/Gekko Corp/Sci-Fi, and I freely admit that whoever's it is, I'm borrowing their show and they retain all rights, etc.

**Author's Note: **Canon pairings. Spoilers for SGA all series. Written in response to a Thursday Vignette over on Rough Trade to practice my writing. Prompt is November 22nd and a picture of a Ferris wheel.

**A False Sense of Security**

John drew in a sharp breath and jerked upright.

He breathed heavily as he took in the vista of a fairground below him with bright lights and crowds of people; ahead of him there was the sky and the stars and the countryside beyond the fairground. He glanced around, taking in the rickety pod of the Ferris wheel; the hard, wooden bench beneath him and the creaking sound as the pod swung lightly in the air.

He looked at himself in confusion; the blue jeans, faded green t-shirt and battered leather jacket belonged to a different time; to his teenage self. He'd expected to see…a uniform. Black.

He frowned.

He'd been…somewhere…and the he'd woken up in the Ferris wheel. What had he been doing, what had he been…

"Come on, John!" John whispered to himself firmly. He just needed to think.

He had been somewhere…he had been on a battlefield…

Swords clashing with bright loud sounds of metal, smoke in the air, and the arrows flying…

No.

That was not…

He'd been in Afghanistan.

Desert sun and hot sand burning his skin; cracked lips and dead men…

No.

He shook his head.

That wasn't…

He'd been exiled to Antarctica and…

Snow.

Ice.

A chair.

"_Think of the solar system,"_ Rodney's voice echoed in his head.

"_Did I do that?"_

Atlantis.

John breathed in.

They'd been on a mission. A planet which was a no-go for the Wraith. They'd wanted to find out why.

John rubbed his hands through his hair, trying to remember. Had the planet had trees? Had they gated through a space gate or straight onto the planet?

John looked up. His image stared back at him in the glass. His real image; a Colonel on the wrong side of forty, black jacket, black pants, black boots, black wristband. He was missing his weapons. As though his mind had spoken, his clothes transformed until he was wearing the image he could see.

Colonel John Sheppard.

He remembered who he was; what he was. He remembered he was the commander of Atlantis and the leader of its first contact team.

Where was his team? Urgency bit into him as he acknowledged he was alone.

First things first: the Ferris wheel was not real.

He was not on Earth. He was not sitting in a Ferris wheel. The last time he'd been on Ferris wheel, Atlantis had been stuck on Earth and the team had treated John to the fairground and Ferris wheel as part of his birthday treat. He had shared his pod with his team; with them laughing and teasing each other; Rodney talking about the physics, Telya the peace and Ronon the danger.

John felt another rush of urgency. He had to find his team. So…was it a holographic reality or just plain mental manipulation, John wondered briskly.

"You are a fascinating subject, Colonel Sheppard," said an amused melodic voice.

John turned sharply and found a humanoid shape beside him; a tall androgynous figure with a bald blue head and deep purple eyes just like a cat's. It was dressed in a shapeless pair of white pyjamas. It pointed one of its three fingers at John.

"Every time we place you in a scenario you find your way here," the alien continued, "fascinating." It waved its hand around the pod. "Why here?"

"Why not?" asked John brightly. "I'm sorry, I didn't catch your name."

"You may call me Goang," the alien said sounding amused again.

"Nice to meet you, Goang," John said, "I'd like to stop playing, retrieve the rest of my team and leave your planet now."

"And what makes you think I would allow such a thing?" asked Goang.

"You've seen what we can do," John said firmly. "You know my people will come looking for us."

"Perhaps," Goang stated, "but I might do to them what I did to you."

"What did you do to me?" asked John.

Goang smiled. "I asked you to be part of an experiment and you agreed."

There was a flash of memory in his head; a large room and Goang, his team on their knees, weapons pointed at their heads.

"I'm pretty sure I was under duress," John stated, but something in him eases because he remembers now; remembers that they'd taken Rodney, Teyla and Ronon to be locked away while he'd been strapped into some kind of machine…

"Your team will remain unharmed while you play here with us," Goang confirmed. "You have already provided many hours of useful data."

"I won't say you're welcome," John said. A machine meant he was only experiencing things mentally, not physically.

"Tell me," Goang said, "do your team know the truth of you?"

John cocked an eyebrow. "My team know me."

"Do they know of the life you led once ago on Altera?" asked Goang. "I found it fascinating. The Alterans were always so unwilling to play. Having you, well, I can see why. So many secrets."

John shrugged. "I have no idea what you're talking about."

"Oh, really, Colonel," Goang said with a tutting sound, "why play dumb?" The purple eyes held his. "The Alterans worshipped you; they constructed their entire new existence around the mythology of you when they arrived in their new galaxy. You were their Once and Future King, were you not?"

John gave a huff and settled back, aiming to look comfortable and at ease. "That's an interesting story."

"I'm in your head, John Sheppard," Goang stated, "I can see everything."

John looked at Goang sharply, dots connecting in his head. "You're in my head, huh?" He thought hard and the Ferris wheel melted away.

Ice formed around them; Antarctica stretched out around them, white and endless. Cold seeped in through John's uniform and he mentally conjured up a heavy anorak for himself, gloves and goggles.

Goang shivered, falling to its knees as John held it mentally in the landscape, made it feel the cold. "How…how are you doing this?"

"You're in my head," John said shortly, "and now; I'm in yours." And he had the information he needed. He threw them out of the machine and into reality.

John immediately ripped the nodes from his forehead, way ahead of Goang who was still shivering. The guards were slow to react and John took advantage of that. He hadn't been restrained – compliant because of the threat to his team – so he moved…

One guard was punched, its gun ripped from it's grasp. John pointed and shot it immediately at a second, even as he brought the guard to cover his body and take a hit from the third guard. A second later the third guard was down.

Goang staggered back from the machine and raised its hands. "You won't shoot me! You have honour…"

John shot him. It wasn't a kill shot; it was a gut shot. Or it would be a gut shot if it was human. John took the few steps separating them quickly and clubbed a groaning Goang into unconsciousness with the weapon.

He was a one-man army as he stormed out of the room and down the hallway; he'd accrued another gun, a knife and a second rifle-type gun by the time he took out the guards in front of the room they'd locked his team in. Team first, their own weapons and GDO device second. It was a race to get back home but John had his team at his back and Goang's knowledge in his head.

It was much later when John had time to think. Late enough that he'd been thoroughly examined and the doctors have provided the all-clear. Late enough that they'd been debriefed and put the planet out of bounds; late enough that they've already done a 'we survived again!' celebration meal with their friends. Late enough that John stood alone on a balcony looking out at Atlantis at night; the lights giving her an eerie quality.

"Thought you might be out here," Rodney said as he bustled through the balcony door to stand beside him.

John gave a hum of acquiescence.

Rodney fidgeted. "It sounded bad, the machine I mean."

"Eh," John shrugged, "it's not the first time I've had to relive parts of my past or been mentally manipulated, Rodney." At least he hadn't believed he'd had his arm cut off again.

"Still, it sounded bad," Rodney countered.

It was an invitation to open up, to talk about it; John knew that. Just as he knew Rodney would accept his deflection, expected his deflection. And truthfully he couldn't talk about it. It wasn't just reliving some of the worst parts of his life because, as he'd said to Rodney, he'd already done that and he didn't need to talk about it again. No, it was reliving parts of a life he only barely remembered; vague whispers of the past which he'd long ago locked up because no man was meant to live two lives, even a man who had once been King.

He looked over at Rodney. "It wasn't all bad."

"What wasn't bad?" Rodney asked bluntly, but his shoulders dropped on cue and John knew Rodney was going to let him skate over what had happened. He accepted the comfort of his friend as Rodney settled in beside him.

John smiled and thought about sky and stars above him; the lights of a fairground and a crowd flowing like a river below his feet. "I liked the Ferris wheel."

The End.


End file.
